Engaging students in critical thinking about the course content is an essential aspect of any successful class. Canvas makes this task much more accessible with their "Discussions" feature. In short, students can continue class discussions, or respond to their peers, through this "forum" function, allowing ideas to be developed through the interaction with other students.

This document will walk you through the steps to:

1. Create a Canvas discussion

2. How to manage discussions for viewing

3. How to create a rubric for the Discussion if you want to use one.

Why would you want to do this?

1. Engages students in discussion of course content with their peers.

2. Allows students to continue conversations about course topics beyond the set class times.

3. SpeedGrader allows you to give effective feedback to the students on their shared ideas.